A Different Fate(Naruto)

Death is a lady with a twisted sense of humor, and she really went all out with me. I died in a rather silly way… I was crossing a pedestrian crossing, minding my own business, and suddenly—bam. No, I wasn't hit by a car. I was killed by a wheel that came off an ambulance. What irony. The wheel detached on a turn, bounced twice, and hit me on the head sideways.

I didn't have time to be scared or do anything. I didn't become a ghost, and recognizing my "self" became extremely difficult. Imagine closing your eyes, ears, cutting off all tactile sensations, and your vestibular system. That's roughly the situation I found myself in, with my "self" seeming to slowly spread out like an amoeba. Really? If I were alive, I'd be covered in cold sweat and my legs would definitely be shaking. Am I now so insignificant? Some instinctive thought-movement gathered my spreading "self" into a ball. Terrifying. Very terrifying. Frighteningly terrifying. And so I am in an unknown place, for an unknown reason, in complete darkness with no thoughts on what to do next.

Then something lightly hit my "outer shell." For some reason, I imagined a deep-diving diver being brushed by the fin of a huge whale. I felt a sort of "wind" with my whole being, which wasn't really wind but pushed me sideways.

I carefully extended a short (by my perception) tentacle and waved it around. It was equally terrifying to either bump into something or find nothing. The latter happened. I curled up tighter and with every fiber of my being wanted to see something. It was still darkness and sensory deprivation. It seemed that everything existing in this world was just thoughts in my consciousness. For some reason, I wanted to pray, but I didn't know the words. After a few hours of this, I was almost sincerely convinced that I had gone insane. But then the darkness around me shifted to a bright orange murk with strange streaks. Apparently, my desire to feel something made my "self" reconfigure to perceive the surrounding world. TERRIFYING! I was just a bluish ball, feeling no bigger than a pellet from a toy gun. And around me… around was hell. In the distance, against the same orange background, huge foreign "selves" the size of entire cities were discernible. Not far from me, something resembling a bullet collided with a similar ball that I was, wrapped around it, and… devoured it. The "bullet" grew slightly in size and moved on, passing by me, now shrunk to a point.

What is going on? My thoughts were mostly profane. Did I just witness a soul being devoured? And judging by the leviathans floating around, this seems to be on a conveyor belt here.

After what felt like an eternity, a tiny soul appeared near me, even smaller than I was. I was doubtful and extremely afraid, but I decided to take the risk. I extended a tentacle from myself and pulled the foreign soul toward me, then tried to absorb it. There was a bump against my shell, and that was it. Nothing happened. Apparently, I needed something else. I tried again. The effect was the same. I remembered that the bullet-shaped soul had first hit the other soul quite hard before absorbing it. I tried to pierce the foreign shell by shaping my tentacle into a conical form. It felt like sipping a thick juice through a straw. I tried to speed up. Surprisingly, it worked; no special skill was required, just the desire.

In life, it had been a stray puppy that was unfortunate enough to run across the road at the wrong time. Foreign memories hit my consciousness, and I barely managed to detach from the flow and retain myself. It was terrifying. I froze again. I almost lost my mind! Just a little more, and I would have gone insane. For the sake of the experiment, I tried to recall anything from the puppy's life. Nothing. The memories flew through my mind during the absorption and disappeared, seemingly converted into simple energy.

"Myself" became larger and a bit stronger, apparently. How not to lose oneself here? I still perceive myself as a human, not a lump of blue, indistinct substance. Damn it! But I feel that hunting is vital for survival. The larger you are, the fewer people would logically hunt you. I wonder if everything here has a consciousness? After all, hunting here seems to be a twisted form of killing.

Somehow, I moved towards the direction, as there was nothing nearby. I thought. At first, the foreign soul just bounced off my shell. Why? Probably because my "self" was tightly compressed. Apparently, this is some kind of armor. Well, as much as possible, I will try to grow a thicker shell because I could become food at any moment.

After a week (completely random, as there's no way to measure time here), when I was almost twice as large as before, a pivotal event occurred in my current existence. I encountered a human soul and attacked it. By that time, my hunting method had undergone drastic changes. The shape changed from a sphere to a ribbed bullet that rammed into the enemy and tore it apart, then absorbed the fragments. I had been compressing my body from the start, hoping to make it stronger, and by then my color had turned black. Apparently, the denser the creature, the darker its color. The exception was white. It was behind the black. During that "experiment" of compression, I nearly ripped myself apart from the pressure.

As usual, I transformed into a drilling bullet and struck the opponent. A piercing female scream—emotion—memory hit my "nerves": "Please, NO!" I would have liked to stop, but it was too late. Even if I gathered the shattered pieces back together, it would be pointless. I had conducted such an experiment before, actually, one of the first. Sorry, Sasha. Memories of the poor girl flashed before my eyes. She was 14, sick from birth, unable to get out of bed, only moving around in a wheelchair, and then, on her birthday, her internal organs failed. Death. As soon as I became aware here, she crossed my path. I have never felt so terrible. It was now that I realized what I was doing. I am a demon, damn it! The very embodiment of a soul devourer.

I curled up into a ball again and froze, feeling only the quiet wind of time. I felt deep pity for the girl, but… but the desire to continue existing was stronger. With a kind of doomed determination, I extended a tentacle for the remaining shards of her soul. Who's on my list? A couple of dogs, some fish, a whole flock of sparrows. Too small for a demon. If I had a face, there would surely have been a bitter smile on my lips. By the way, an overly active sparrow managed to start eating me in response. It was smaller, so it was doomed to lose. Such a ridiculous first "fight," amusing.

The girl's memories vanished, transferring to my power and body. She is no more. The scariest thing was how easy it was. My first human kill, and the only thought in my head was a reproachful "It's a shame she crossed my path." And that's it. Nothing more.

In my self-reflection, I delved so deeply that I didn't notice the moment I collided with an exceptionally large entity. I was denser than it, so I didn't dissolve but began to gradually penetrate it. For some reason, an unpleasant analogy with a worm came to mind. There wasn't much time for reflection. And then… then there was a JOLT. The entire massive (compared to me) body shot off at a gigantic speed… to where—I don't know. But in a moment, it became clear—specifically, a moment before the "sky" fell on the "earth"—the giant jaws snapped shut.

Motherfucker. I don't want to be here. I want to be alive again. To walk the earth once more, even if I'm just a cat, as long as it's not this terrifying place. I suppose the cycle of "I'm a tiny bug" here is practically endless. No matter how strong I become, there will always be a body stronger and more toothy… the size of a couple of galaxies (though even the enormous cities I had seen barely fit into my imagination, which was already cracking at the seams).

The existence of a worm in someone's enormous soul did not appeal to me. I pinched off a piece and fought my way out. Apparently, what I'm in now is a sentient tree. An alien? No. The tree was just old enough to have accumulated enough life energy to give rise to a soul, and here was some unlucky being who, instead of absorbing the almost free energy, dissolved itself, giving away its memories and apparently part of its consciousness.

If souls come here, they must be able to leave. Observe and feed on passersby. A few—damn, it's terrible to lose track of time! Probably a couple of months have passed. So, after these couple of months, I had "fed" myself to a considerable size. I was avoided. A local predator, the biggest perch in the pond. Well. To some, I'm huge, but damn, I remember how the sky fell and the horror I felt then. Those enormous souls, bigger than multi-story buildings and cities, were crushed in mere moments.

The soul emerged as a mist, gradually becoming saturated, as if seeping from somewhere. And then, finally, it dawned on me that my perception was not absolute. This world has more than THREE dimensions. And even more than FOUR (space-time). Time itself has several dimensions… Attempting to expand my perception hit me hard. It felt like extreme drunkenness, disorientation, and a headache. True, I don't have a head, but the pain doesn't care about that fact. It hurts, and that's all there is to it.

I returned to the now-despised orange spectrum of perception. It slowly eased up.

What helped me hold on was watching my own memories. It felt strange, like eating yourself...

Compared to my previous self, I was a whale next to plankton. Only the plankton were humans. The scale of the changes was so colossal it was hard to grasp! However, this size allowed me to see even more enormous entities.

Twice, I was almost devoured myself, and it was then that I learned the local equivalent of teleportation out of fear. It's a powerful thought-jump that also consumes a bit of your essence—apparently, it's an energy expense. I was very lucky at that time, as I definitely wouldn't have had enough energy for such a jump.

I had fifteen fights with other predators, nine of which I lost and was forced to flee, trying to preserve my essence. Although, it's strange to call it a fight. Two blobs collided, flailing pseudopods at each other, which "stick" to pieces of souls. Whoever first touches the center of the other's personality wins almost immediately. Though I don't even know where that center is. It's possible it floats somewhere deep within the body, having no fixed location.

And then, a significant day arrived. I managed to look BACK. I was met with disappointment. Dead emptiness with the glitter of distant stars, no planets or nearby objects in sight. Maybe someone would be enticed by the life of a lone space traveler, endlessly drifting through cold space—there's a certain romance to it, but not for me... I would take a heavy sigh if I could, but I can't. I return.

After who knows how long, I stumbled upon a living world. A vaguely familiar world. My form emerged in orbit around a blue, even bright blue planet. I approached and gradually descended through the clouds. An ocean's emptiness. A relatively small archipelago of islands, and that's all. There are some small islands, but they can't compare to that bunch. There are no people on them. I approach the "mainland" (I repeat—compared to our Eurasia, it's just a small island).

If I had eyes, they would have been as big as truck headlights. I'm in an anime! In an anime! How did I realize this? A crowd of men with Konohagakure headbands were energetically hopping across the treetops like grasshoppers. They didn't see me... The second stage of astonishment came when the ninjas began conversing in a strange mix of Russian and Japanese... According to the theory that the human mind creates worlds, this one was created by Russian anime fans.

As a black mass covering half the sky, I followed the shinobi. Such sizes are extremely inconvenient.

I took a mental sigh (since I couldn't do it physically) and decided to carry out experiment number forty-seven. I drifted further out into orbit and... SUPER-COMPRESSION. To a white state. The size—about that of a human body. I begin the experiment.

It's difficult. It gets harder every second. Oh! A white spark in the center of me. The process has begun. The reverse pressure tries to tear my essence into pieces, and only willpower allows me to avoid disintegration. The larger the white spark grows, the heavier and lighter it becomes at the same time. Heavier due to the growing internal pressure, lighter because the process accelerates. Finally, the true self merges into the white spark, the pressure from within disappears, and now I'm just collecting myself back together, guiding the process from the core.

My desire won. A humanoid white body about two and a half meters tall, surrounded by white radiance. An angel... with a non-angelic core. No fingers or small details. My body resembled a child's stick-figure drawing.

Even so, I was happy.

I wonder what time I'm in? Has the crazy orange story happened yet? On one hand, I'd like to participate or watch it live. On the other hand—forget such complications. I remember the fight between the tailed beast and Orochimaru. And then, according to the canon, there will be even bigger monsters.

Orochimaru... a freak conducting inhumane experiments in pursuit of eternal life. On one hand, that's true, but on the other... on the other, I understand him. Now, the problem of eternal life also interests me because I VERY much do not want to continue existing in such an unfriendly afterlife. Eternal fear of being devoured, eternal hunting of all by all, and eternal guilt. At least, right after that girl, I learned to simply absorb other souls without looking at the victim's memories; otherwise, I would have lost my mind. Completely. I occasionally, just occasionally, looked at a memory to know who was unlucky this time. And so, I suspect, my mental state is problematic. Solitude in such an inhospitable environment could not fail to affect me.

Sooner or later, they would lead me to Konoha, also known as the Hidden Leaf Village. Unofficially, it's the capital of the Land of Fire, where the ninja academy is located—the hired killers, guards, and spies... mistakenly calling themselves ninjas. To me, they seem like combat mages and jack-of-all-trades.

The shinobi I was following were probably patrols, and after a week, I arrived (since there's no point in walking when you can fly) at the Hidden Leaf Village. The stone-carved faces of the rulers on the mountain, the recognizable round building of the Hokage's residence—basically, the ruler of the village, colossal walls, the height of a six or seven-story building, and thickness of 10-15 meters, streets somewhat familiar from the anime. I even found that ramen shop, "Ichiraku Ramen." It's just a fast food place. And the ramen itself isn't anything special, I've tried it. I don't get why it's so popular with the main character. Cheap, filling, quick, but there should be more variety!

And there's the academy for young assassins, or shinobi. A white-haired boy with bright blue eyes, whisker-like scars on his cheeks, dressed in a garish red outfit, walks inside. Am I at the beginning? Lucky me! I go inside right through the wall and watch.

Naruto is taking the exam alone. Well… If it looked somewhat decent in the anime, here Naruto is as dumb as a post. The sensei are making an effort to give hints, trying to pull the boy to at least the lowest grade. In vain.

The practical test! Just like in the canon—Henge, the transformation technique, which allows you to turn into a similar proportioned person or object. The more differences from the original, the more chakra is consumed. Fails.

Illusory clones. Creates an illusion of a person that doesn't interact with anything, just walks through. Fails.

After the academy, one of the instructors pulls Naruto aside. I can't hear anything, but it seems like they're trying to convince him to steal a scroll from the Hokage's library. Joyful face and a nod of agreement.

I'm watching this absurd theater. Even arrows are drawn in the residence, "secret scrolls there." Yep, and he still gets lost. Is he an idiot by nature, or was he taught this way?

Night. The boy in the red outfit with a huge scroll on his back "sneaks" with the grace of an elephant through the forest. I nostalgically remember this episode...

But everything is going completely off-canon. Here, halfway through the night, Naruto finally learns his clones. Here's the traitor Mizuki giving his speech about how a malevolent demon the size of a good-sized train is sealed inside the boy. The eternal shuriken flies (a four-bladed propeller from an old plane, folding like a knife), and Iruka is supposed to cover the boy with his body in mid-air, but… he doesn't. The sensei stays put, with some kind of gloating expression on his face, watching Naruto. The shuriken pierces the boy's stomach, the blade coming out of his back, pinning him to the ground. Somehow, the spine is not affected. With a silent scream, his mouth opens wide, his eyes staring blankly until the end, the body twitches a couple of times and goes limp. The local-scale grim reaper is coming soon, the Kyuubi, they call it! The demon holds on only thanks to the boy's life!

I can't believe it… But there it goes, the soul ball shoots upward, strangely disappearing, not the way I exited that world. I wave a piece of thinned pure energy at it, hoping to slightly increase the suffering being's chances.

Iruka and the arriving Anbu (local special forces, it seems) shredded the traitor and his accomplices, and Naruto's body was taken to the hospital. I know it's already useless…

But what if? I approach and gently touch the body—feels like dipping into warm water. Is it worth it for me? Consider it as taking someone else's fate. After all, I only watched the anime, who knows how events will unfold in reality, especially with significant deviations already. On the other hand, the world almost revolves around this guy, according to the canon, whom one can't really trust.

Summoning up my resolve, I "dive" inside. The soul is gone, but a residue of memories remains. Not complete, but it's there! The memories don't flood into my head in a cascade; instead, thoughts about something come with a dual sensation, as if a foreign image appears in my imagination.

Sensations of the body flood in, sensory shock from the newly returned feelings, pain… I pass out into oblivion.